In Your Corner
by Niente Zero
Summary: Lt. Welsh and Constable Fraser find themselves in a tight spot. Even if they get out, there are unexpected consequences awaiting. Fraser's new superior distrusts his actions. What will her lack of trust cost before things are set right?
1. Relevant Sharpened Apparel

**Disclaimer - I don't own it. I am not making anything off it. I do get a kick out of displacing my angst onto people in shiny red uniforms.  
**

**Chapter 1 - Relevant Sharpened Apparel**

Lieutenant Harding Welsh relished having reached a point in his career where he could afford to spoil himself with really nice shirts. On the other hand, he didn't appreciate being in a position where the only logical course of action was to strip to his undershirt and use one of his really nice shirts to attend a heavily bleeding scalp wound. At least it wasn't his own scalp, but the truth was, he was getting too old for this.

It wasn't his style to go out on his detectives' busts, but Internal Affairs had been sniffing around Ray Vecchio for months. If it wasn't one thing it was another. Someone up there hated Vecchio. Well, he was good at antagonizing people. In fact, he was a pro. So when Vecchio said he knew of a major drug deal going down, and one of the players had already been complaining about police harassment, Welsh broke habit to be along for the ride.

The current setup wasn't a big operation. Vecchio's informer had told him that it would just be two men meeting to make the deal, high powered figures in the drug world who, according to Vecchio's informer, wanted their meeting to stay nice and private.

Welsh and Vecchio should have been able to make the arrests, never mind the spare Mountie who seemed to work for the Chicago PD in his free time as a hobby. Of course there was backup - four uniformed men waiting in two cars a block away, but of course, they were under strict radio silence so as to not alert the targets of the bust to the police presence too soon.

He _was_ getting too old for this, because it was going down as a righteous bust, like Vecchio promised, until he, Harding Welsh, with thirty years experience on the force, moved wrong and made a noise because his hip had stiffened up while they were crouched behind packing crates in a warehouse waiting for the buyer to pass over the money to the seller. He'd drawn down all kinds of trouble. So much for radio silence. Now Vecchio, Welsh thanked god, was still out there. Vecchio had better be getting out to the uniforms and bringing help along.

When things went crazy, Vecchio had happened to keep his cover behind some crates across the other side of the warehouse entrance to Welsh and Fraser. Welsh and Vecchio had watched as Fraser got between Welsh and a seriously angry drug baron. With a beautifully agile twist of his torso, Fraser had avoided being shot down by the seller, but he had not avoided being introduced head first to the sharp corner of a packing crate by the buyer in the deal. Welsh was painfully aware that this was mostly due to Fraser being preoccupied by trying to see if the bullet from the dealer's gun, which had splintered the packing crate Welsh was hiding behind, had also splintered Welsh.

Welsh knew he really needed to get out from behind the desk more often. Of course, if the Mountie hadn't leaped forth heroically, Welsh thought he might have had a clear shot at the dealer. It would have been fifty fifty on who hit whom first, but the consideration did salvage his pride.

On the one hand, Welsh wished that Vecchio had broken cover to take some shots at the criminals who were causing all the trouble. On the other hand, with the Constable out cold on the floor with two guns trained on him, Welsh had no choice but to surrender, and if Vecchio had made his presence known during the split seconds between when Welsh had slipped up and when the Mountie had been taken down, they'd have all been caught, and there would have been no-one to seek help.

To hell with Internal Affairs, Welsh thought, Vecchio was a damn good cop, with damn good instincts.

Scalp wounds always looked bad. Welsh wasn't a nursemaid, but he thought he did a creditable job of binding up the cut over the Mountie's temple.

"Open your eyes, kid." Welsh mumbled. Just when did they start making cops so young? Welsh wondered, although he knew that Fraser's youthful face belied many years of experience. Welsh still felt ancient when he compared his cynical, no, realistic beliefs about the way the world worked to the bright eyed optimism that Fraser brought into the station.

Welsh looked around the warehouse office that the drug baron had unceremoniously locked the two of them in. There was probably an easy way out. Based on Ray Vecchio's reports, chances were that Fraser would spot the easy way out with alacrity. There was a solid door and he'd heard the drug dealer lock it from the outside. There were no windows. But there was bound to be some neat sleight of hand to get them free. Or, of course, they could hope Vecchio got back to them with backup before the drug baron decided it was clobbering time.

Fraser groaned and stirred. He tried to sit up, but his head wasn't co-operating. It didn't want to lurch upwards, and it let him know by spinning ferociously. His eyes started to open, squinting at the bare bulb light in the office.

"Ray?" he said.

"No, Constable, Vecchio's still out there." Welsh said dryly. He wasn't a nursemaid, and he also wasn't really much in the comforting line.

"Oh. Lieutenant Welsh." Fraser opened his eyes fully, bringing a hand up to shade them. "We've been captured?" he asked, looking around the office.

"That's about the gist of it." Welsh replied.

"My apologies, Lieutenant." Fraser said. "I must have made a miscalculation."

Welsh's lips twitched in a mirthless smile as he said, "I think I should be the one apologizing, Constable. I broke cover. But if you want to apologize, knock yourself out." He realized that this was an inapposite choice of words almost immediately, but to his surprise, Constable Fraser appeared to be mildly amused.

"Someone seems to have taken care of that already." Fraser said, pressing his hand to the impromptu bandage around his head. He attempted to sit upright again, assisted by Welsh's steadying hand at his back this time. "How long was I out for?" he asked.

"Couple of minutes." Welsh said. A couple of minutes where Welsh had initially not even been sure the young man was still alive, and then had to half drag him, half carry him from the cavernous warehouse into this room. The drug baron had given him the choice, move Fraser quickly or he'd finish the Mountie off where he lay. Of course, he'd promised he'd be back to kill them, anyway. But where there was life there was hope. He wasn't about to share just how relieved he felt that Fraser appeared to be cognitively normal and not about to drop dead on him, but he was very, very thankful.

Fraser looked around, moving his aching head as little as possible. Getting a good look at the room was a fine balance between efficiency and calling down those tremendous dizzying waves again. When he found himself in a locked room, he took it for granted that he'd be the one strategizing an exit. Ray Vecchio reacted poorly to being in confined spaces - perhaps a touch of claustrophobia - and while he was always helpful in implementing Fraser's escape plans, he rarely contributed greatly to formulating them. As much as Fraser respected Lieutenant Welsh, he didn't stop to consider that the man who hadn't been hit on the head recently might be the more logical choice for planning action.

Welsh watched Constable Fraser turn pale beneath the unfortunate cascade of dried blood down the side of his face. With an exasperated sigh, the Lieutenant almost gently pushed Fraser back down to lie on the folded jacket he'd slipped under his head. "Constable, with all due respect, maybe I should take care of this one." he said.

Fraser was glad to close his eyes against the glaring light. He could still think with his eyes closed. As soon as some of the throbbing subsided, he'd be right on the task of reasoning a way out of the situation. Without the light dazzling him, the nausea that accompanied the headache subsided, leaving him feeling shaky but grateful. Soon, the headache had settled into mere jolts of shooting pain in time with his heartbeat. He was finally able to push the part of his mind that was dealing with the pain down long enough to focus. Concentrate. And the first thought that made its way into this free bit of brain was "Well, at least we're not wearing straightjackets."

Lieutenant Welsh was standing on the desk in the small office examining the high, unfinished roof that belonged to the warehouse. Sadly, the walls of the office went all the way up to it. And without a ladder, there was no way to get to it. But he would leave no stone unturned. As such, he was inspecting every inch of the room. Some of the reports that Vecchio had filed beggared belief at the level of creativity used by the Detective and the Mountie to worm their way out of tight corners. If the Mountie weren't completely upright, Welsh would suspect Ray was making things up. As he considered this point, staring at the roof abstractedly, Welsh was startled to hear a low chuckle, more of a snort, emerge from the man on the floor.

"Something amusing you, Constable?" Welsh inquired in the disdainful tone of voice that turned weaker men to jelly. He didn't see what there was to laugh about in the situation.

"My apologies, Lieutenant." There the man went, apologizing again. "I was just thinking that it was a good thing that we aren't in straightjackets."

Welsh's eyebrows went up. His mouth twitched in amusement. "Ah, yes, Constable. Now that you mention it, I recall hearing about that. You wouldn't happen to have any relevant sharpened pieces of apparel on you today, would you?"

Fraser took a moment to pull himself up into a sitting position again, taking advantage of the solid desk the Lieutenant was standing on. He leaned his back against the side of the desk and closed his eyes again until the whirling disorientation caused by movement passed. He took the Lieutenant's question at face value.

"No, sir, not that I would consider applicable in this situation. I mean, if I had my hat..." He looked around, but he'd taken the hat off to keep his profile behind the packing crates as small as possible and it was probably still lying out there in the warehouse proper. "No, that would be a long shot anyway."

Welsh climbed down from the desk awkwardly. "We're not getting out through the door unless you happen to be carrying lock picks." he said. "Up is right out. No windows. Thoughts?"

He had planned to effect a brilliant escape without the help of the injured man, but with the knowledge that the drug baron could return any time, armed and ruthless, he couldn't afford to blunder on if there was a chance that he was overlooking something obvious. He'd made one costly mistake today already. He didn't have the time left to coddle a man who apparently neither needed nor wanted such soft treatment.

Fraser scratched his ear. "The room we're in, it was the door to the back and left of the warehouse?" he asked.

"That's right." Welsh said.

"Well, my observations on the depth of the space within the warehouse, when summed with the depth of this room would suggest to me that it's highly likely that the back wall of this room is an exterior wall."

Welsh nodded. He squatted down, knees creaking, to be on a level with the Mountie while they strategized. "I follow."

"And on the way in, I noticed that this is an old building. The outside appears to be made of corrugated steel."

"Steel." Welsh said. He had no idea what the Mountie was getting at, but those reports had been compelling reading. Maybe... "Are you suggesting we do something with magnets? Maybe make an electromagnet out of that hunk of -" he pointed a finger at an unwieldy looking computer that rested against one wall of the office.

Fraser looked puzzled. He shook his head slightly. "No, Lieutenant. but if the interior walls are flimsy too, there is a slim chance that we can break out by brute force. I suspect based on the temperature in this room, which is quite cold, unless I have a fever-" he looked at Welsh for confirmation of the temperature, and Welsh nodded for him to go on. Without his shirt and jacket, the Lieutenant had to agree it was very chilly.

"I would guess that the interior walls are some form of cheap sheetrock. That would be easy enough to break through. Then we would need to locate a stud to which the steel was nailed and again the application of force - well, it wouldn't be easy, but it's not impossible to part rusty nails from wood."

"Oh." Welsh was nonplussed. That was a simple, if slow, plan. Not at all the kind of leap of imagination he'd expected. He wasn't sure if that was the head injury, or if taking down the wall really was the only way out.

"The only thing, Lieutenant," Fraser said, more softly, "Is that I'm afraid I won't be much help."

"Yeah." thought Welsh. "You look like you couldn't stand up without throwing up on my shoes, I'd like to see you break a wall down."

Out loud, he managed sympathy and forbearance. "Don't you worry about that now Constable. They took my gun and radio, so I can't ask you to watch the door or call for help. Vecchio better be on that. So you just rest easy there, and why don't you go ahead and tell me one of those Eskimo or whatever stories, huh?"

It felt good to kick through the sheetrock. Welsh had enough frustration to make a sizable hole with a couple of kicks. He wasn't even really listening to the Constable's story, although words did pop out and catch his attention.

"Anyway. It turned out that his sister had been feeding the seal for months. That's why he thought it was stalking him."

"Okay." Welsh thought. "I gotta get him to repeat the rest of that when we're out of here." He ripped sheetrock away, widening the hole. At least a bit of luck was with him. There was a stud behind and slightly to one side of the section he'd broken loose. Welsh pulled more of that section of sheetrock free.

Welsh could see dark stains through the wood showing where the corrugated steel was nailed to the stud. The nails had rusted and the corrosion had darkened the wood around them, but that still didn't give him any good ideas of how to reach between the stud and the sheet of metal to pry the nails loose. He pulled his pocketknife out, glad he hadn't been properly searched by the panicked drug dealer, and started to dig at the wood close to the exterior metal. It was some moments before he noticed that the Mountie wasn't talking any more.

"Constable Fraser." Welsh turned briefly from his absorbing and probably futile task. "You need to remember your part of the job. I need you to keep talking." This elicited a "Yes, sir." but nothing more.

"Pain worse?" Welsh asked. Not that there was a damn thing he could do about it.

Fraser felt mentally drained. It felt like the small amount of looking around and strategizing and talking had been as taxing as sitting a long trigonometry exam. "It's fine." he said tersely. To Ray Vecchio he might have been more blunt, but whining in front of Welsh was not an option. It WAS fine, it was just a headache. Okay, a really bad headache. The sort one might, if one were the drinking type, experience after a three day bender. But still. Just a headache.

Welsh made a frustrated huffing sound. Small talk was very much not his thing. "So Constable, tell me about your first posting. I hear it was way out in the middle of nowhere."

"Come on." he thought. "Everyone knows it's impossible to get you to shut up about the great white North. Talk." As long as Fraser was talking, Welsh could focus on trying to rip out a wall from the inside without worrying too much about Fraser's health.

"It was remote." Fraser said. He didn't feel inspired to say more, but he knew that the Lieutenant was counting on him to keep talking, to prove that he hadn't succumbed to his head injury. Which was ridiculous, he thought. He was fine. It was just a headache. "Lieutenant, please." he said. He hated to show weakness, but the thought of chattering on was intolerable. "I'm sorry, I just don't feel much like talking."

Welsh huffed again. "All right. Here's what we'll do Constable. You just hang in there, and I'll check in every minute or so. All you have to do is make a noise when I ask if you're still with me. Got it?"

"Mmm." Fraser drifted into a lapse from thinking, letting his mind slip free of trying to form words and sentences. He listened to Welsh work, listened to the sounds on the roof of the empty warehouse. The cool air in the room felt refreshing against his face. He twitched alert when he heard a noise from the other side of the heavy door that kept them locked in the office. Footsteps. Coming closer.

"Lieutenant." Fraser said quietly.

Welsh paused. He listened and heard the footsteps too. Maybe they were out of time. He grabbed a chunk of sheetrock, the only thing weapon-like at hand, and moved toward the door.

**Author's Note:**

**This was meant to be a nice little one-shot, an opportunity for Harding to get into the field and demonstrate some badassness without too much assistance from the boys. Which is why I knobbled the Mountie. Who still insisted on being bossy even with a really bad headache. And then the story turned into something longer. About three chapters more longer. **

**The story takes place just after Vault in season two, and will deviate from the canon universe in terms of events that happen, but I sincerely hope not in terms of people behaving like themselves, if I can help it! **

**Stick with me for further exploration into Fraser's working relationship with two superior officers. (And some fireworks in the final chapter!)**


	2. Disgrace to the Uniform

**Disclaimer - I don't own it. I am not making anything off it. I do get a kick out of displacing my angst onto people in shiny red uniforms.****  
**

**Chapter 2 - Disgrace to the Uniform**

Fraser listened carefully. The footsteps outside the door did not belong to anyone he knew. It was probably the drug dealer. But he could hear other footsteps as well.

"That's not Ray." he said. "But I can hear him in the building. It sounds like he has company."

Welsh turned to look at him with disbelief. "You can tell his footsteps from this guy's?"

"Of course." Fraser said. There was an implied "You can't?" in his tone that irritated Welsh.

Fraser took a deep breath. Every minute that passed, he felt stronger, less dizzy. He pushed himself into a crouch, then pulled himself upright, turning to lean on the desk until the room stopped performing a dervish dance around him.

He pressed his lips together tightly and looked around the room. He scrutinized the door. Based on the position of the hinges, it would open outward, which was a disadvantage. That negated any thought of blocking it by pushing the desk against it.

There was no chair. Whoever owned the building didn't use this office to work. There was no lamp, which might have made a handy staff-type weapon. The power cord for the computer on the floor might make a fine garrote or lasso, but that was largely useless against a man bursting into the room with a gun.

Fraser settled for a piece of sheetrock to complement Welsh's, and positioned himself across from the Lieutenant, by the door, hugging tight to the wall. The Lieutenant gave him something that Fraser thought the older man probably believed was an encouraging smile. It was not exactly sparkling with the milk of human kindness, but he was glad enough of it to smile back.

The faint footsteps belonging to Ray and two other men were catching up with the footsteps he'd first heard. With luck, Ray would get the jump on the drug dealer before he came through the door to shoot them.

Ray Vecchio moved slowly and carefully. He didn't dare alert the drug dealer to his presence. The two uniformed men moved with equal stealth behind him. After the drug dealer had forced Welsh to drag the unmoving form of Fraser into the back office, Ray had waited for fifteen agonizingly long minutes as the dealer and the buyer finished their transaction. The buyer appeared to be demanding much reassurance that the whole thing wasn't a setup. They had walked out of the warehouse together, and as they passed the crate Ray was crouched uncomfortably behind, Ray heard the dealer say that he had arrangements to make so he could take care of the cops.

Ray watched the buyer leave the scene, frustrated that he was slipping away and taking the drugs with him. The dealer stayed close, in his car, using a car phone to make whatever his arrangements were. Ray couldn't get further in to the warehouse to get to Fraser and Welsh without passing through the dealer's line of sight. But he could get out around to the side, and back to the uniformed men waiting in cars nearby.

All that time he spent in cold dread. Not only was his career down the toilet if his Lieutenant got killed on his bust, but seeing Fraser like that - so still and pale - Ray couldn't help second guessing his snap decision to stay down. It would have done Fraser no good for Ray to give himself away. He hadn't had a clear shot at either the drug dealer or the buyer. But reality wasn't nearly enough to overcome his guilt.

Returning with two of the uniformed men, Ray hoped to make a clean arrest, planning to catch the dealer while he was still on the phone in his car. He had no such luck, the man was already somewhere back in the warehouse. That meant caution. Ray couldn't risk that alerting the man to his presence if he was already with Welsh and Fraser. Right now what they _didn't_ have was a hostage standoff. If the dealer had a cop and a Mountie at gunpoint, he would be in a negotiating position Ray would much rather not deal with.

Welsh and Fraser heard the key turning in the lock. Welsh made a couple of hand gestures, and Fraser nodded. When the door opened and the dealer stepped into the doorway, Welsh swung his piece of sheetrock up hard to hit the man in the face, while Fraser brought his chunk down narrow edge first to smack the man's wrist, with the hopes that he would drop his gun.

Fraser's blow was simply not hard enough to do anything more than startle the drug dealer, although Welsh's whack to the head slowed him down. As soon as the dealer shook it off, bringing up his arm to defend against a repeat of the attack, he turned his gun on Welsh.

"Drop the... " he looked around the office and noticed the hole in the wall. "Drop the... wall. Both of you." he said. "Or I start shooting parts off." He was aiming at Welsh because the Mountie still appeared slower and disoriented, less of a threat.

Welsh dropped his chunk of sheetrock and put his hands in the air. Fraser moved as if to do the same, but at the last second he grabbed at the dealer's arm, swinging it away from aiming at Welsh.

The gun ended up pointed between Fraser and Welsh, but the dealer grabbed Fraser's other shoulder, pulling him in close, face to face. He put his free arm around Fraser's neck as if he were hugging him. The gun in his hand pressed against Fraser's stomach. Fraser's grip on his arm was useless to prevent the dealer from shooting if he chose to.

"You really don't want to do this." The dealer said. His back was to the doorway now, and Welsh flashed a brief glance over the dealer's shoulder at Ray Vecchio who was moving in quietly from the side. Welsh doubted that Fraser could see Vecchio's approach from the angle at which the drug dealer was holding him, but he hoped that the Mountie could hear that help was near.

"I don't want to kill you here if I don't have to." the dealer whispered confidentially in Fraser's ear. "Too much mess. But if you keep trying to fight back, I'll do it right here, nice and _slow_. Behave and we'll go for a ride, then it'll be over quickly."

Then the dealer shoved Fraser away roughly. "I guess I underestimated you two. Look at you, like rats, trying to chew your way out." he said. "Get on your knees. Hands behind your back." he ordered Fraser. He reached into his back pockets and tossed Welsh the handcuffs that he'd confiscated earlier.

"Cuff him." he said. He kept the gun on the kneeling Fraser. Welsh had so far been obedient when the younger man's life was threatened. The dealer was counting on that.

He wasn't counting on the barrel of Ray's gun being pressed into the back of his neck.

"Drop your weapon!" Ray said forcefully. Welsh, standing behind Fraser, moved quickly to push the Mountie flat to the floor.

"I said drop it!" Ray repeated, grinding his gun into the flesh of the dealer's neck. The two uniformed policemen stepped into the room and stood on either side of the dealer, guns pointed at him. He reluctantly lowered his weapon and let it fall to the floor.

Welsh got up off the floor and cuffed the dealer with the handcuffs he'd been ordered to use on Fraser. Fraser stood, too, this time not taking very long to regain his balance and stability.

Ray looked at Fraser with concern. Welsh's shirt was soaked through with blood where it was wrapped around Fraser's temple.

"Okay, Benny, let's get you to a doctor." Ray said, as Welsh oversaw the drug dealer's arrest.

"Oh, Ray, it's just a small cut." Fraser said dismissively. "I can put some salve on it at home."

Ray scowled and exhaled loudly. "Benny. You don't have to take care of everything yourself. This isn't the Yukon territories. You can let someone else fix you up. No argument."

Fraser closed his eyes and opened them again. Ray did not look like he was in the mood to hear any rebuttal. And perhaps Ray was right. He did have a tendency to assume that he'd have to take care of things that other people, people who grew up in less lonely circumstances, automatically knew they didn't have to handle on their own.

"Understood, Ray." he said.

Naturally, there was a wait at the emergency room before someone could stitch his wound. When that was done, it was well past the early rising Mountie's bedtime, and Ray drove him straight home.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Ray asked as he pulled up outside Fraser's building.

"Yes. I'll need to stop by the Consulate in the morning and fill out some paperwork." he gestured at his head. "But then I'm not on duty until after lunch, so I should imagine that I will be at the station by ten."

Ray nodded, satisfied. "Okay, Benny. See you then. Take it easy."

"Thanks, Ray." Fraser smiled warmly. "Good night."

Ten o'clock the next morning came. Eleven came. Ray Vecchio waited at his desk. No Mountie. Ray was surprised. It was very unlike Fraser to be late or absent from where he said he'd be. At lunch time, he decided to stop by the Consulate, but the constable wasn't there, and the man on desk duty wouldn't say when he'd be back.

After work, Ray drove to Fraser's building. He climbed the stairs to Fraser's apartment and knocked. Fraser opened the door and seemed indifferent to seeing Ray.

Ray stepped into the apartment. "It's cold in here." he observed.

"Yes, the heat doesn't seem to be working." Fraser said.

"Have you talked to Dennis?" Ray asked. The building super could be weaselly, but there were laws regulating how long a landlord could go without fixing the heat, and it should have been taken care of.

"Oh, I'm sure someone has." was all Fraser said. He sat down at the bare table and waved his hand to indicate that Ray should sit too.

Diefenbaker was more enthusiastic in his greeting, coming to Ray for attention when he sat down.

"So. How are you feeling?" Ray asked anxiously. Fraser was out of uniform, and he wondered if the stubborn man had actually taken sick leave because of the bump to his head.

Fraser didn't respond for a moment, looking at Ray with an expression that seemed to be holding everything in check, a dam wall.

"Ray, Inspector Thatcher suspended me." he said.

Ray burst out with "You're kidding me!"

Fraser again took his time answering. For a while he stared at the table top.

"No, Ray, I'm afraid not." He sighed, a deep, shuddering sigh, and looked up at his best friend. He wasn't one to for emotional outpourings but he had been hurt where it mattered, his sense of duty, and he did trust Ray to understand.

"After I gave her my report about what happened last night, she said-" Fraser began, still in a flat tone of voice, then paused. Ray waited.

"She said I had recklessly endangered myself, and Lieutenant Welsh."

Fraser didn't elaborate upon the fact that Thatcher seemed to think that both times he'd put himself in danger, when he leaped out and got hit on the head, and later when he'd wrestled for the gun, he'd acted out of a desire for glory, not out of a desire to protect Welsh. Or that he hadn't been able to find the words to explain his actions to his superior without sounding like he was boasting.

"She said that she had already suspected from my file that I was not a team player. She said I had no business being along on the drug bust."

Fraser crossed his arms in front of his chest before he continued speaking.

"She said that my actions were a disgrace to the uniform. She said that when I come off suspension, she'll make sure that I spend the rest of my career behind a desk, so I can't do any more harm."

The last two sentences came out almost inaudibly, and his gaze once again dropped to its intense examination of the table.

"Benny." Ray said, reaching out to touch the other man's shoulder. "She's wrong. You know that."

Fraser mumbled something. Ray thought it was "It doesn't matter."

Fraser's fingertips brushed across the bandage over his temple. Ray caught the gesture.

"Hurts?"

"Mmm." Fraser replied. The cut to his temple wasn't helping him think through the situation.

"The doc gave you something for it, right?" Ray asked.

Fraser reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out an orange vial of pills, unopened. Ray examined it. The instructions said that the strong pain killers needed to be taken with food.

"Did you eat?" Ray asked. Looking around he saw no signs of cooking or food being consumed.

"Yes, Ray." Fraser said. He'd had an apple. Technically, he'd eaten. He'd fed Diefenbaker, of course. He'd never let the wolf suffer just because he wasn't on top form.

Ray sighed exasperatedly. He knew when his friend was only technically telling the truth. "Did you eat enough to take one of these pills?"

Fraser shook his head slightly.

Ray stood up. "Come on. You're coming over for dinner. Ma will be mad if she finds out I let someone go hungry when she could possibly feed them."

Diefenbaker stood up at this pronouncement. He'd been watching the conversation with concern, but this was a good development. There was probably a meatball in it for him, never mind getting his moping human to do something useful.

Ray ruffled the wolf's head. "Yeah, you too. Ma will be happy to see you as well!"

Fraser was slower to stand up. He didn't know if he could take the chaos of the Vecchio household. But he certainly wasn't up to arguing about it. Why not? Just go along, do as he was told. What else was there to do?

Ray had no intention of subjecting Fraser to the family dining table. When he told his mother that the Mountie was recovering from a head injury, however minor, she would hear of nothing but that he should sit up in the guest bedroom, tucked in to bed, and have Ray bring a tray up. Fraser was grateful enough for the quiet to overlook the embarrassment at Ma Vecchio fussing around him like a five year old with a scraped knee.

While Ray waited in the kitchen for his mother to put together generous plates of food for the two men, he made a phone call. Fraser wasn't going to be happy about that, either, but Ray had a head of steam worked up. After dinner, and after Fraser had been persuaded to take one of the pain pills with a glass of water, the doorbell rang.

"I got it." Ray yelled. He went downstairs, and came back up with Lieutenant Welsh.

Fraser tried to get up out of the bed when Lieutenant Welsh entered the room.

"Sit down, Constable, sit down." Welsh was still feeling guilty about the man's injury. And now Ray had told him that Fraser's new superior officer had deemed him some kind of maverick and called him a disgrace, suspended him from duty. That was not good, and he felt responsible for it too.

Welsh had long turned a blind eye to the fact that Constable Fraser's position as liaison at the Consulate did not necessarily entitle him to wander around crime scenes with Detective Vecchio without any proper paperwork to establish a need for Canadian co-operation on any given case. He was loath to interfere with the informal partnership that was doing wonders for the district's arrest rate. He was a pragmatist. If the pair took bad guys off the streets, was he going to worry that every 'i' wasn't dotted, every 't' not crossed? It was a grey area, but Welsh was comfortable working in grey areas.

Constable Fraser's previous boss had been oblivious to the situation. The new inspector apparently favored a more by-the-book approach, and Welsh knew that the lack of documentation on his end would do nothing to help the constable's case. But he, personally, owed it to the man to put up a fight.

"Vecchio told me about your problem." he said bluntly.

"Oh." Fraser felt at a disadvantage. He felt infantilized, sitting on the bed with his boots off while his colleague's superior stood and talked to him. And he was embarrassed that Ray had gone straight to Welsh with the news.

"Now, Constable, I know I've questioned your methods at times, but we both know that you're a damn fine officer." Welsh said. He didn't praise his men to their faces often, but sometimes it was the right choice.

"Well. Thank you for saying so." Fraser said.

"I'm going to go and talk to this Inspector Thatcher." Welsh added. "Don't worry. We'll get this sorted out."

Fraser smiled, but his eyes remained blank.

When Welsh had left, Ray sat beside Fraser on the edge of the bed.

"There you go." he said. "Welsh will put the fear of god into her."

Fraser pinched the bridge of his nose. "Somehow, I think that the inspector has already made up her mind." he said tiredly. "It's nice of Lieutenant Welsh to try."

Ray stood up. "So what, that's it, you're just going to let her push you around?" he said sharply.

"She _is_ my superior officer." Fraser reminded him. He looked up at Ray, and Ray saw dark emptiness in his usually serene expression.

"Ray, after I arrested Gerard for his part my father's murder, it was made very clear to me that- you know that- they don't want me back home. The only places they'll transfer me - they're the last places on earth _anyone_ would want to go."

It was a very blunt statement for the usually circumspect man. He continued:

"I tried so hard to make it work here. It hasn't always been easy. I tried to fit in. You know I've always done my best." He took a deep breath, not waiting for Ray to reply.

"Inspector Thatcher has made it clear that she doesn't want me here, either. If I try to stay, she'll do everything she can to ensure I spend the next thirty years licking envelopes and holding doors open."

There was no question in Ray's mind of what that would do to the active, intelligent man. It was a slow murder to stick him with menial, pointless duties. He was furious. The woman had just come in out of nowhere and decided that Fraser was trouble, and apparently she had the authority to destroy his career.

"What are you going to do?" Ray asked.

"I have no idea." Fraser replied. He pushed the blankets aside and moved to stand up. It was very sweet of Mrs Vecchio to mother him, but right now he felt stifled. He'd shared a lot with Ray, a lot of things that he would normally have left unspoken.

"I think I had better go home now. Thank you for having me for dinner." he said.

Ray rolled his eyes. "I don't think you want to be alone right now, Benny." he said. He was worried. The recent head injury, the emotional upheaval. He didn't want to send Fraser back to solitary brooding in his small, cold apartment.

Fraser pressed his lips together tightly in frustration, clenching his fists and unclenching them before he spoke again.

"I really would rather be alone, if you don't mind. I can walk home."

Ray raised his eyebrows. That was practically a burst of temper from the softly spoken Mountie.

"Okay, Benny, whatever you say." Ray said soothingly. "Of course I'll drive you."

**Author's Note:**

**Trouble! Stick around for some more introspection, a confrontation between two superior officers, oh, and is that a bomb in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?**

**Enjoying the story? Let me know what you think so far!**


	3. Red vs Blue

**Chapter 3 - Red vs. Blue**

Fraser spent the next morning walking with Diefenbaker, thinking about what his options were. He certainly couldn't sit around feeling sorry for himself. It was just that he'd never considered a career outside of the RCMP. Whether his father had intended it or not, even as a boy he'd always assumed that he'd follow his father's footsteps. The men around him who he admired most were Mounties. The red coat was imprinted on his earliest memories as signifying everything good, noble, everything worth pursuing as a true vocation. It had never been a question of 'if', only 'when will I be old enough?'

Outside of the force, what was there for him? It was possible for a non-citizen to join the Chicago Police Department, but the probability of getting a work permit in a reasonable amount of time was low. Besides, there was certainly no guarantee that he'd continue to work in the 27th District. Not to mention that it seemed like a complete betrayal to walk away from serving his country, even if his country apparently no longer wanted his service.

The other call, aside from law enforcement, was to serve and protect the remote wilderness he'd grown up in. There were jobs a man could do, and do well, out where no other human might be seen for months. But he was torn between his beloved home, and Chicago, where he had found himself making friends and becoming surprisingly attached to the city, to his neighborhood, to the police station. It was a puzzle, and none of the answers he had seemed satisfactory. There was nothing he would rather be doing than serving in the RCMP, in this strange international alliance with Ray Vecchio.

Inspector Margaret Thatcher was currently no happier than her suspended subordinate. Chicago was not a particularly prestigious posting, not a good step up the ladder for her. Now she found herself surrounded by incompetent idiots and grandstanders. She couldn't see how she could get rid of the bumbling but mostly harmless Constable Renfield Turnbull, but she was damned if she was going to have some cowboy causing all kinds of public relations disasters on her watch. Constable Benton Fraser was going away, whatever she had to do to achieve it.

She resented the hell out of the American police lieutenant who'd called demanding an appointment to talk to her, presumably on the constable's behalf. At least he'd had the sense to ask to see her on her own turf, rather than trying to make her come to his police station.

Thatcher and Welsh squared off across her desk. She refused to be intimidated by the grizzled man's hard stare.

"I understand that you wish to talk to me about one of my men." she stated.

"That's right." Welsh said. "Listen, Inspector, I'm going to be frank with you. I think you're making a big mistake."

Thatcher bristled.

"I'm not sure on what you're basing that statement." she said.

"That'd be your treatment of Constable Fraser." Welsh said. "You seem to have this idea that the constable is some sort of troublemaker. You're not going to like me telling you that you have no idea what you're talking about, Inspector, but you have no idea what you're talking about."

It was not a diplomatic tack to take, but Welsh didn't feel much like engaging in diplomacy. He was in no mood to watch a good man cut off at the knees for the sake of political maneuvering.

"Is that so, Lieutenant Welsh?" Thatcher said icily. "Because I don't think I'm making a mistake. I read Constable Fraser's personnel file, and now I've seen the results of his general conduct. I think it's time for him to take a long, hard look at whether a law enforcement career is right for him. Personally, I think he might have a great future in a circus, or somewhere else where his attention-getting stunts are more appreciated."

Welsh made a sour face. "This last 'stunt' of his might just have saved my life, Inspector. I'll admit I made a mistake, and Constable Fraser put himself in danger with no second thought, to protect me. Perhaps his file doesn't convey that nuance very well, but I can tell you that in my experience working with the constable, the defining characteristic of his behavior is not attention seeking. Frankly, if the man had a lick more sense he'd be less modest and less willing to sacrifice himself for anyone that needs help."

The words that came out were more emotional and less cool-headed than Welsh had planned to be in confronting Inspector Thatcher. But they seemed to shake her conviction.

"I'm sure that some of the constable's actions have been creditable." she allowed.

Welsh interrupted. "You're damn right they have been. More than some. Are you aware that he saved a young Chinese-American lad from the triads when the FBI was unable to? Or that he broke up a scheme to illegally test drugs in unwilling mental patients? Your constable may have unorthodox approaches, I'll agree with you on that, but I'd put him up with the best of my men."

He glared. If anyone found out that he'd gone papa bear on behalf of someone who wasn't even technically his responsibility, he'd deny it up one side and down the other.

Thatcher physically backed away from his vehement outburst.

"Well." she said. "What exactly do you want me to do? I can't allow Constable Fraser to continue behaving in ways that put him at risk, and the reputation of the force at risk." She ran her hand through her hair. "You must be aware that since being posted to Chicago, Constable Fraser has been shot, stabbed, and engaged, according to his reports, in any number of physical altercations, at least one of which lead to a serious beating. Lieutenant Welsh, you must be able to see that this is self-destructive attention seeking behavior of the worst kind. I have no choice but to take him off active duty."

"You put that man behind a desk and you might as well take him out back and shoot him." Welsh said. "You haven't been here that long. And I understand that his file is colorful reading. But you're only seeing one side of the picture there. We're talking about a young man who goes above and beyond to uphold the law, and here's a novel idea, Inspector, protect the weak. Just give him a chance. That's all I'm saying." He leaned back in his chair.

"Fine, Lieutenant Welsh. I'll see what I can do." Thatcher stood up and gave Welsh a thin smile, clearly dismissing him.

"It was a pleasure." Welsh grumbled under his breath as he left her office.

Fraser returned home from his walk to find Mr. Mustafi, his neighbor, waiting with a phone message from the Consulate. The inspector wanted to see him. He got into his uniform quickly. It was a short walk to the Consulate. He didn't know how long Thatcher had been waiting, but he set off at a quick pace.

Welsh had talked to Ray when he returned to the station, and Fraser was less than a block from his building when the familiar green Riviera pulled up along side him.

"Welsh went to see the dragon lady today." Ray said, leaning over to open the passenger side door.

"She wants to see me now." Fraser said, leaning in. He sounded nervous, Ray thought.

"I figured she might. Hop in. No point wasting time."

Thatcher watched the man in front of her. He was a puzzle. Right now he seemed nervous. Almost scared. Yet by all accounts he had physical courage to spare. There was something else with the anxiousness. She'd already seen that he struggled to stand up for himself in her presence, but she saw a level of steel and determination in him today. She wondered what he expected her to say.

Thatcher ran her hand through her hair and sighed deeply. "Constable Fraser, I suspended you with good reason. And your suspension stands for the rest of the week. After that, you will be on desk duty-" she saw that he was about to open his mouth to protest, and put up a hand to silence him.

"You will be on desk duty for a month." she said. "That will give me time to work with Lieutenant Welsh to make sure that your co-operation with the Chicago P.D. is beneficial to Canadian relations with the US, and is conducted in a way that will not bring the force into disrepute. If you want to continue serving, you will have to learn to act with more discretion than you currently seem to favor. Do I make myself clear?"

Fraser closed his eyes for a long moment, then said "Yes, sir."

It was better than he had been fearing. It was still frustrating. Nearly five weeks of inaction- he already felt restless at the thought of it. However, the new inspector was giving him a chance, she was actually allowing the possibility of changing her mind from her first impression of him. Unlike the wall of cold shoulders that faced him in Canada, she was treating him with something approaching human decency.

"That is all, Constable. Report for duty next week. And try to stay out of trouble." Thatcher shook her head as she turned back to the paperwork on her desk.

Ray was waiting outside.

"I think I have a lot to thank Lieutenant Welsh for." Fraser said as he slid into the passenger seat.

Ray noticed that some of the grimness that had haunted his friend's eyes for the last few days had vanished.

"Good news then?" he asked. He pointed the Riviera toward the police station.

Fraser nodded. The thought of losing his career, his identity, had been like drowning, and he felt like he had just broken the surface and could breathe again, but he didn't know how to talk about it, what he had almost lost, what it meant to him.

"I'm still suspended." he said, but calmly. "And then on desk duty."

Ray was surprised at how easily Fraser said that.

"How long?"

"Just a month." Fraser shrugged. A month. That wasn't so bad. He hadn't been transferred to the edge of Siberia. Thatcher hadn't recommended that he be dismissed from the force. He was practically jubilant, in a low key way, because the headache persisted and he couldn't quite believe the reversal in his fortune. It would take some time to sink in.

The week on suspension passed slowly. Fraser took the time to walk a lot, and read a lot. If he admitted the truth to himself, it was probably good to have the extra time to recover. He was in the habit of rushing back to work regardless of injury, but this was his second head injury in a short time, and the doctor at the emergency room had been quite insistent that he be extremely careful until he was fully recovered.

The first week back on desk duty was less easy to settle into. Inspector Thatcher made it entirely clear that he was there on sufferance, and any misstep he made would count strongly against him. Constable Turnbull was being kind, but Thatcher's personal assistant, Ovitz, was taking every opportunity to make snide remarks at Fraser's expense, insinuating that he was unfit for duty. Letting the comments roll off him was an exercise in forbearance and mental strength.

Fraser assumed that desk duty meant he should stay well away from the police station. But that didn't mean that the officers from the 27th District felt the same need to stay away from him. In spite of his frustration at Thatcher's tight leash during his working hours, his evenings were busy and convivial. Ray, and usually at least one of the other detectives, or Welsh, or Ray's sister Francesca, or Elaine, the civilian aide, insisted on keeping him company.

Fraser was sure that they were keeping an eye on him after his embarrassing lack of discretion when talking to Ray about his feelings, but it was all done with surprising finesse. Of all the conspiracies Fraser could imagine being a target of, this was definitely the sweetest. Diefenbaker approved too, as the humans seemed to use food as a general proxy for expressing concern, and he was living large.

Thatcher was not oblivious to the fact that every time her subordinate left the consulate one of the Americans was around. She got the distinct impression that the detective, Vecchio, thought of her as a mean Mommy who wasn't letting Constable Fraser out to play. She couldn't help but think of Fraser's chumminess with the entire 27th District staff as something akin to fraternizing with the enemy.

On the fifth day of his durance behind the desk, Fraser was offered a small amount of relief and variety to his schedule when Inspector Thatcher called him into her office.

"Constable Fraser, I am giving you the opportunity to show me that you can behave in a professional manner. I will be attending a meeting relating to the funding of the United Nations Mission in Haiti, which as you know involves a large deployment of RCMP personnel. There was to be a higher level official involved in this meeting, but his arrival to Chicago has been delayed by weather, so I'm taking his place just for today. I will need you to act as my assistant."

Fraser could tell that the opportunity and challenge to show herself at her best at this important meeting was making Inspector Thatcher nervous. He did his best to smile reassuringly.

"Understood, sir." he said.

Thatcher looked her subordinate over thoughtfully. Well, at least he was always in a state of absolute, pristine grooming. The bandage was off his head and the stitches had been removed, leaving a barely visible scar along his hairline. And he did seem to have very nice manners. He shouldn't embarrass her in this situation.

"Change into your dress uniform. You'll drive, of course." she said, shortly. "We'll leave in half an hour. The meeting is scheduled to take place at a conference center just outside of the city."

The conference center was a moderately sized one story building set in an expanse of greenery. The meeting to discuss financial arrangements for the Haitian peacekeeping mission was taking place in one of the smaller rooms. There were approximately ten attendees from various nations and the room had a long table down the center at which the attendees sat. There were two uniformed security officers provided by the conference center, one each stationed at the two doors that opened in to the room, to make sure that no one but the attendees and conference center staff entered the room. Fraser took a position on the edge of the room, by wide french windows that looked out into the beautiful gardens.

He was interested in what was taking place at the table, but it was mostly arcane squabbling over details of who had agreed to what particular rate of financing for certain parts of the operation, and he didn't have the background in the subject to understand it all. Inspector Thatcher appeared to be holding Canada's ground forcefully.

It was while the French delegate was speaking that Fraser noticed a gardener working outside the window. Two things caught his attention immediately. One, the man was deadheading flowers that were still quite alive and in bloom. Two, the cuffs on the man's uniform were rolled up and bunched around the wrists, as if the shirt were much too long in the arms for him.

Fraser turned to look more carefully at the gardener. He saw him reaching into a long burlap sack beside him. Something made Fraser nervous about the situation.

"I think everyone should leave the room, immediately." he said, turning and interrupting the delegate who was speaking.

"Constable Fraser!" Thatcher spoke sharply. "What on earth are you talking about?" This was the kind of erratic behavior she'd been afraid of.

He turned to glance at the gardener again. The man had now pulled a glass bottle with a rag coming out of the neck from his sack. Fraser knew what it was at once.

"Bomb! Everyone get out, now! Go, go, go!" he said, desperate to convey the seriousness.

**Author's Note: In spite of appearances, I don't hate Inspector Thatcher. Actually, I have every sympathy for anyone who has to command a crazy hero type person. I wouldn't be any good at being the boss of Fraser either. **

**Please review and let me know what you think. Feedback helps! Chapter 4 still needs some significant work. Constable Fraser and I are in a pitched battle over how much of an indestructible superman he thinks he is.  
**


	4. The Shirt off My Back

**Warning - there's a somewhat graphic injury in this chapter. If you are squeamish about such things, you might not enjoy it.**

**Chapter 4 - The Shirt off My Back**

The delegates looked at each other, confused, but the word 'bomb' was enough to get them to their feet. "Go!" Fraser yelled. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man outside pulling his arm back to throw the bottle. Finally the delegates started to run toward the doors at either end of the room. He saw that Thatcher was still standing there on the other side of the table, looking at him with an expression that combined curiosity and disbelief. The French delegate was frozen in indecision beside her, and one of the others had tripped over in the mad rush to get out of the room. Fraser shook his head. No time. If they hadn't got out, he had to block some of the blast somehow.

"Get down!" Fraser shouted, his voice strong and commanding, not the deferential, nervous tones Thatcher was used to hearing from him. Fraser saw the light of recognition of the situation dawn in her eyes as she pulled the French delegate to the floor with her.

Fraser ran forward and threw his weight into tipping the conference table over onto its side, shielding Thatcher and the other delegates.

It was just in time. The molotov cocktail exploded as the false gardener pitched it through the window. The noise was unbearably loud, and Fraser's dress jacket and shirt and the back of his trousers were torn to shreds by small slivers of flying glass from the bottle and the window.

Most of the window glass hung eerily in hundreds of shattered chunks still attached to sturdy transparent nylon safety film. If not for that saving grace, the whole window would have been shrapnel, ripping through whoever it hit. The curtains of the room caught fire, going up quickly, framing the damaged windows with red and yellow flames. Had Fraser or any of the other attendees been closer to the window when the blast hit, the gasoline splashing out from the exploding bottle would have soaked their clothes and burned them alive, as was the wicked intent behind the crudely made incendiary device.

The carpet was going up in patches where the gasoline had splattered out, circles of flame that were catching and growing, with splayed out arms where the gasoline arced out of the bottle, deadly fingers of fire stretching toward where the table had been, where the delegates had been. The top of the table, which was as torn up with the minute glass fragments as Fraser's back, started to sizzle in the heat, the varnish bubbling up.

Ignoring the sudden searing pain from the skin on his back suffering a mass of tiny lacerations, Fraser turned and ran out through the window, determined not to let the bomber escape. Thatcher stood up from behind the table, ears ringing loudly, to see his bloodied figure pass through the flames from the curtains. She shook her head, confused and disoriented. Looking around, she saw that all of the other attendees had now made it out of the room safely. With her own determination, Thatcher ran out the door and through the building to the nearest exit, in pursuit of her subordinate and the man who had made the attack on the meeting.

Adrenaline carried Fraser the few yards he had to run to catch up to the bomber on the path next to the drive leading out of the conference center gardens. The problem was that once he had his hand on the man's shoulder, the differential between the person who'd thrown the bomb and run and the one who'd been on the receiving end of the blast skewed things strongly in the bomber's favor. He turned and swung wildly. Fraser barely moved his head and the bomber's fist caught him square in the jaw. Fraser went down hard. He grabbed at the fabric of the man's stolen gardener's uniform, pulling with great effort to bring the man down with him. But when his back hit the ground Fraser let out a cry of pain and for a moment lost control of his ability to fight back, doing nothing more than flailing wildly at the bomber.

Thatcher caught up with the two of them struggling on the ground. The man who had thrown the makeshift bomb had the upper hand. He was sitting on top of Fraser, and she could see that he was trying to grip Fraser's head by the hair and dash it against the pavement. Fraser's hands were around the man's wrists but it didn't look like he was putting much muscle into fighting the man off.

"Freeze!" she yelled. Granted, she didn't have a gun, but it caught the bomber's attention long enough to prevent him from doing what he was trying to, and that was plenty of time for her to bridge the distance between them and kick out, her foot catching him firmly under the jaw, knocking him off Fraser. By that time, the two security men from the meeting had reached the tableau and had their guns out.

Fraser rolled to his side, his face creased with agony, jaw tight. Every shallow breath that he exhaled through clenched teeth was accompanied by an involuntary whimper. The ground where he had been lying was covered with blood. While one of the security men subdued the attacker, the other knelt beside Fraser.

"There'll be an ambulance here shortly, sir." he said in a calm, soothing tone. There wasn't a lot that could be done in the way of first aid. Fraser nodded acknowledgement, teeth still pressed together.

Inspector Thatcher knelt down too. To hell with her nylons, she thought. Her subordinate was shaking, going into the early stages of shock, losing blood. There were minor burns to his back along with the damage from the glass. She swallowed down a nauseated retching at the smell of blood and burned skin. She couldn't afford to let animal panic overcome her.

Thatcher took one of Fraser's hands. It was clammy to the touch. She gripped it firmly. He squeezed back, crushing her smaller hand in his. Not that she minded right now. He was obviously unaware that he was doing it. "What you did in there," she said, holding eye contact with him, "was very brave. I... I may have been misjudging you." There was a spark of comprehension in his eyes, but it lay deep under the pain that enveloped him.

She saw now what Welsh had been driving at. Certainly Fraser had been unconcerned for his own safety, but his quick insight into the danger and his actions had undoubtedly saved lives, and possibly prevented an international crisis.

He could have chosen to run, save his own life. He didn't have to stop to pitch the table on its side. No one would have blamed him, after all, he'd warned everyone to get out. He'd done his best. But she had seen the look in his eyes as he threw the table up as a barrier. It hadn't been frightened, or crazed. It had been cool, collected. She could close her eyes and remember what she'd seen, the calm intelligence assessing distances and timing and consequences. 'If X therefore Y.' Knowing that if he didn't do something, the blast from the molotov cocktail would hit more people. Choosing without a second thought to protect them at his own expense.

If she had reacted sooner, if she had trusted him when he said they needed to get out, instead of waiting, convinced that he was pulling some sort of stunt, then perhaps it would have been a different value for X, and 'therefore Y' might not have been seeing him lying bleeding and whimpering on the ground in front of her.

Running after the bomber, well, that was a decision she would review with him later when he was in better shape. But it was clear to her that it wasn't motivated by flashy heroics. It just never occurred to him not to pursue the man, regardless of his own physical state.

The security man who had been talking to Fraser had gone quickly to an outdoor faucet and brought back a bucket of cold water, with which he was trying to douse the burns as gently as possible, cooling them and limiting the damage. It was a hard balance between treating the burns and trying to keep Fraser warm to combat the shock. The security guard had draped his coat over Fraser's legs, but his raw back lay open to the air. As important as it was to stop the uncontrolled bleeding, there was no real way to manage it without causing greater damage from the glass shards. Thatcher kept her eyes averted, instead looking at Fraser's face, and occasionally at the security guard. She was barely in control of her senses. Fraser needed urgent medical care and all she could give him was not passing out or vomiting, so that's what she had to do.

Thatcher saw flashes of horrified guilt in the security man's eyes. There were only the two men attached to this meeting. It was low profile, and no one had expected any terroristic acts. But it was his job to ensure that what had happened, didn't, and he had failed.

Fraser's grip on Inspector Thatcher's hand started to weaken. His eyes were distant, as if staring off into a far horizon. His whimpering breaths began to quiet, but Thatcher could tell that it was not because the pain was lessening. His teeth were still clenched tightly, but there was not enough air pushing through them to carry his cries. "Stay with me, Constable." Thatcher said sharply. "Come on." His eyes blinked and refocussed on her, and she felt him squeeze her hand, albeit in a mockery of his previous strong grip.

Fire trucks screamed up the wide driveway to the conference center. Thatcher swore under her breath. Where was the ambulance? It had only been minutes, but her relief was immense when she finally saw the boxy white vehicle. She hadn't realized she had been all but holding her breath waiting.

As the EMTs loaded the injured man into the ambulance, the security man who had been helping him took hold of Thatcher's arm.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am." he said, "I know you'd prefer to go with your subordinate, but the police will need to get witness statements."

Thatcher swallowed down a protest. She was there representing her country, she had her duty. She watched the ambulance speed away and composed herself for the long evening ahead of answering questions and recounting that damnable scene over and over.

Through the course of the evening, which was spent largely at the closest major police station, Thatcher found out that the bomber was a member of a pro-Government Haitian group. The FBI had been watching the group but hadn't predicted that they would act in such a dramatic way to disrupt the peacekeeping efforts.

Because of the burns and the other damage to the skin occurring across a large area of his back, Fraser was taken straight to the University of Chicago burn center for treatment. He was quickly stabilized with fluids to treat the shock by restoring his normal blood pressure and circulation. Fortunately none of the wounds from the glass had been deep initially, although there were many of them, and it took hours of skillful surgery to remove each and every one. Wrestling on the ground had pressed many of the fragments of glass in deeper, which had caused the blood loss leading to shock, his body rapidly responding to a drop in blood pressure.

By the time Thatcher broke free from the rounds of statements and questions and reconstructions and more questions, it was too late to visit the hospital, and anyway, a phone call got her the information that Fraser would be in intensive care overnight to make sure that he suffered no long term consequences from going into shock.

In fact, he spent two more days locked away on the burn ward, with no one allowed to see him but family, which apparently translated through means Thatcher was unsure of to "Ray Vecchio," and only Ray. Arguing with the charge nurse on the ward, a competent young woman named Vicki, with dark brown hair and a soft, lilting Irish accent, did nothing to further Thatcher's cause. She noted with resignation and very little surprise at this point that Nurse Vicki appeared to have taken Fraser thoroughly under her wing. He had that effect on women.

That gave Thatcher two days of paperwork and follow up interviews and far too much time on her hands to sit at her desk and revisit the explosion, seeing it happen over and over in her head. It shouldn't have happened like that. Things like that - terrorism even on such a tiny scale - weren't supposed to happen here. She hadn't experienced anything like it before, and it shook her that a good man could be hurt because of something that belonged overseas in hot-blooded countries pulsing with unrest. It wasn't supposed to happen on a manicured lawn, in a quiet, formal meeting. Not like that. Every time it replayed in her mind, the split seconds between Fraser's warning and her action seemed to drag into molasses slow hours, hours in which she could have moved, could have done something to save him the agonies he'd suffered.

When Thatcher was finally allowed to visit, Fraser was tucked in a private room, lying on one side with pillows supporting him, drugged up to the gills. To her chagrin, he was also surrounded by the Americans. Vecchio was there, and Lieutenant Welsh, and for reasons unfathomable to her, a woman she believed was Detective Vecchio's sister. It was practically a party, one that stopped abruptly when she entered the room.

Fraser was the only person not looking dubiously at her. He was giving her a loopy smile. It was obvious that while he was feeling no pain, he also didn't have much comprehension of what was going on around him. There was no 'Fraser' there. Thatcher bit her lip. The word from the medical staff was that he was out of any danger and just needed time and sedation to get through the worst of the pain. But she had done this. Her mistrust and antagonism were at least in part to blame for the quick, intelligent light in his eyes being dulled like this. She thought, he was always so serious, she'd wondered if he ever smiled, but this, this was a mockery of a smile, something that wasn't really directed at her, at anyone.

The others, though, their eyes spoke clearly enough. Probably, Welsh and Vecchio, the male Vecchio, were worried that she was going to suspend Constable Fraser again, or otherwise make the incident his fault. She sighed. She deserved that skepticism.

"I'm just here to see how Constable Fraser is doing." she said brusquely, annoyed that she should have to explain herself at all.

"'Mmm doing fine." the man himself answered, still smiling that unnerving smile, his eyes glassy and blank. "I can fly. Would you like to fly with me?"

Thatcher met Welsh's eyes. He gave a small shake of his head. "Doc says he's neurologically okay. It's just the heavy duty stuff they doped him with."

Vecchio suddenly spoke up sharply. "You can't blame this one on recklessness." he said in an accusing tone.

Inspector Thatcher put her hands up defensively. "I'm not blaming Constable Fraser for anything." she said.

Fraser moved his head to look back and forth between them with a befuddled expression that looked on the verge of sorrow.

Nurse Vicki appeared at the door, drawn by the sound of raised voices.

"Have ye all no shame?" she demanded. "Let the poor man rest!" She shooed them out of the room.

Ray looked troubled. How could he have been thoughtless enough to pick a fight while Fraser was lying there? He and Welsh and Thatcher moved out of Fraser's room, leaving a delighted Francesca to pat Fraser's head and hold his unresisting hand.

Outside Fraser's room, Thatcher was bracing herself to admit that she might have been wrong. Her particular audience made it no easier. When she had been thinking of Fraser as nothing but a screw-up, Vecchio fit very easily into her preconception. He was the bad influence, egging Fraser on. Without that framework, she really didn't know what to make of the detective. His manners to her, and to his superior, were less than courteous. He appeared to have a hair-trigger temper. And yet, Welsh seemed to respect his judgement.

As for Welsh, well, the man had the audacity to come and tell her how to manage her staff. And he had the audacity to be right about it. That burned her up. But as she had been working with Welsh to put Fraser's co-operation on a more regular footing, she had to admit that he was a good, experienced lawman. She had no excuse to particularly dislike or distrust him other than hurt pride that his perception of the situation had been clearer than hers.

However, she did pride herself on being able to admit when she had made a mistake. She crossed her arms over her chest, and cleared her throat.

"Lieutenant Welsh, Detective Vecchio, it turns out. I suppose I must say. I was," it was hard to say it, "I was wrong to suspend Constable Fraser. I still have questions about his decision making priorities, but I was wrong to believe that he was not fit for his position."

Thatcher met Welsh's eyes defiantly, then Vecchio's. Vecchio was smirking slightly. Welsh, she couldn't read.

Welsh spoke: "I'm glad that you've come to that assessment, Inspector." he said. "I don't think you'll regret it." Then he leaned over to her and whispered just loud enough for Vecchio to hear, "I'd say we both have our work cut out with our men, though." and gave her a small wink.

Thatcher gave a small, surprised laugh. She supposed Welsh was an ally in the sense that Vecchio and Fraser were both definitely not cut from the usual cloth of the rank and file. Co-operation between her and Welsh where possible would certainly make her life easier.

After two more days, Fraser's sedation had been reduced to a level that left him more alert. When Thatcher visited, she finally found him alone, except for the ever vigilant charge nurse, who gave her a warning look, clearly telling her not to upset the patient.

Thatcher sat beside Fraser's bed, her hands clasped in her lap awkwardly.

"Constable, I don't know how to say this, but I'm so sorry for what happened." she began.

"Actions have consequences." It was a simple statement of fact. "I did what I had to do. I knew what was likely to happen. Please don't make a fuss about it."

Fraser rubbed his eyes, and Thatcher watched the IV line that ran into his hand, the tangible reminder that he was not just going to walk away from all of this, that he still needed antibiotics for the wounds on his back and plentiful fluids in case of kidney damage from the shock. 'And god knows', she thought, 'whatever they've got him doped up on for the pain.' All his luck and skill hadn't availed him much going head to head with explosive, razor sharp glass.

"Constable, a fuss is going to be made. Whether I make it or not, the press is all over this. You're a hero. But you shouldn't have had to -"

"Please." The word was spoken in a low tone, but it was arresting. Thatcher's eyes met Fraser's. She stopped speaking and listened.

"It was a split second. You can't second guess whether you acted quickly enough."

Thatcher smiled grimly. "Constable, I'm not second guessing anything. I know I acted too slowly. I'm not proud of it. I need..." it was almost impossible for her to ask, but there could be no peace between them until she did. She wouldn't be able to command him if she knew she had done him an injustice. "I need you to accept my apology, Constable Fraser. I need your forgiveness for what happened."

Fraser's brow furrowed, puzzlement etched on his face. "But there's nothing for me to forgive." he said. "You didn't throw that bomb. You reacted as quickly as you could." He tilted his head slightly. "You saved me. The bomber would have killed me if you hadn't acted."

Thatcher found herself struggling. He really, truly didn't hate her for the way she had misjudged him, and what that had led to? In fact, he was giving her credit for acting with dispatch?

"But you-" she said, her voice almost a whisper, rising in a questioning tone.

"Yes, I got hurt. I'd do it again, if I had to." Fraser said, plainly. His eyes held hers without a trace of regret or guile. "It was worth it."

"Oh."

Thatcher stood suddenly. She didn't know what to make of Fraser's lack of anger at her. Besides, he looked exhausted, like it was an effort to keep his eyes open.

"I'll let you rest." she said briskly. "And if you really don't want any media attention..."

He shook his head, and then winced. "I'd rather not."

"I owe you that much. I'll see what I can do." Thatcher smiled fleetingly and left the room.

**Author's Note: Meh. This chapter has me beat, so I'm going ahead and calling it good. How did we get here from chapter 1?! What a rocky road. There's an epilogue, because I can't leave well enough alone. Please let me know how you liked it!**


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Desk. Fraser was beginning to consider it a four letter word. Of course, it WAS a four letter word. He was just beginning to consider it the sort of four letter word that didn't normally grace his vocabulary.

Fraser had been released from the hospital sooner than anyone had expected. His back was healing well, the cuts had not become infected, and he was a restless patient, not keen on staying any longer than was absolutely necessary. He was discharged under strict orders from Nurse Vicki to wear a helmet for anything more exciting than washing dishes, and to come back in for outpatient treatment to change his dressings regularly.

Then he'd spent a week on mandatory medical leave, mostly lying in bed on his stomach watching television with no sound, which was not a brilliantly stimulating activity. A few of the neighborhood kids had come by to take turns walking Diefenbaker, eager to help Fraser now that his heroic actions were all over the news. Inspector Thatcher had been true to her word and had done her best to shield Fraser from media attention, but all that had achieved was to turn him into a figure of mystery and romance, much speculated about by the tabloids. Ray Vecchio found that hilarious. Fraser, on the other hand, was somewhat mortified by the whole situation.

And now, Inspector Thatcher had made it quite plain that while it was no longer a punishment detail, Fraser was going to work out the three weeks he had left of desk duty, at a minimum, before she would see him back on the streets and at risk of finding someone whose life needed saving at the possible cost of his own. Fraser had seen the irony that he had finally won his superior's trust, only to end up chained to a desk anyway.

Thatcher felt bad about keeping Fraser confined. She could see now that although Constable Fraser had a stillness about him, like the deep reflective stillness of a mountain lake, his resting state was an illusion hiding the wellspring of kinetic energy that didn't express itself in klutzy missteps like Turnbull's, or in fast-burning bouts of temper like Detective Vecchio, but in a strength and grace and physicality which he lent freely to the cause of justice.

Thatcher made every effort to make Fraser comfortable. She searched out a kind of chair that worked in more of a kneeling than sitting position so that he didn't have to lean his tender back against anything for a while. She had Turnbull find out how he liked his coffee (Turnbull did not disclose that of course he'd already known that), and she did her best to find him meaningful work to do behind the desk.

One morning, Thatcher stood outside Fraser's office, unnoticed, watching the dutiful man try to find something useful to do. He was fast and efficient and all his paperwork was well in order by the first hour of every shift. There were only so many visa information requests or enquiries about export licenses for him to handle. And technically, those weren't even his duties.

It was just that if she didn't find things for him to do, he- well, he did things like very carefully measuring each and every eraser in his drawer (why did he have so many?) with a caliper, and organizing them according to size, even though there could only have been micrometers of difference. Which was what he was doing now. Thatcher found herself wondering what he used as a tie breaker should two be of identical size. She shook her head slightly; if Constable Fraser were not to be transferred, then she would have to avoid the contagion of his eccentricities.

When Turnbull opened the front door to let in Detective Vecchio, Thatcher was almost pleased to see the American.

"Yes, Ben can go out to play." she said under her breath. Out loud she said crisply, "Detective Vecchio, I trust you haven't come to demand anything strenuous of Constable Fraser."

Vecchio grinned. "Unless you think lunch is too strenuous."

Thatcher glanced across at Fraser's office again. He was almost indecently rapid in the way he got to his feet and pulled his coat on. She ducked her head slightly so neither man saw the small smile of amusement on her face.

"Very well. But try not to get involved in a shootout at the deli." She turned on her heel and walked back into her office, ignoring Ovitz's puzzled glance in her direction. She still wasn't sure that she liked Constable Fraser being so chummy with the Americans but - she'd live with it. She could hope to guide her subordinate to be more cautious in his unique approach to law enforcement, but short of being able to change his nature, it was probably safest for him to have the Chicago PD at his back.

**Author's Note: There we go, all done! I hope you enjoyed it, and as usual I did my best to restore harmony to that little corner of the universe!**


End file.
